It is not every day
that a Nigerian man leaves his family to go and find work in Italy. My father
lost his job because his skills were no longer needed and the company was going
in a different direction. The different direction was a young Yoruba man who had
just finished his youth service -- a one year required service corps for all
Nigerian college graduates -- and had plan that would make the factory
competitive and rival the biggest European manufacturer of African textiles.
The news began with a phone call. My mother screamed at first, collapsing
dramatically on the floor and began yelling something about her enemies
laughing at her. It all happened so fast, and in a few
hours, my father returned home earlier than usual and headed for his bedroom.
In between what
sounded like muffled tears, my mother's high-pitched voice could be heard,
“Darling it’s okay now. Darling it’s alright. Would it have been better if he
were an Igbo boy? Ehn? After all he's Benin. He's your junior brother. It’s
okay.” Her consolations were a far cry from her hysterical outburst just hours ago, but we were hardly shock, this was just my mother in character.
After losing his
job, my father would wake up every morning and still drive us to school as he
had always done. In spite of the fact that he had lost his job and perhaps had
nowhere to go, he still dressed up, some days in a shirt and trousers, other
days in kaftan and trousers, ever so dignified, refusing to accept any handouts
from friends or family. He managed to keep his head up for a while, but with
time, his despair became evident. As we watched television at night, he would
rest his chin in his palm, sighing deeply and clucking. The weekends were the
worst, as he paced up and down the compound deep in thought speaking inaudibly
as he covered the yard with steps that seemed light but were ominously heavy.
After the first
two months, my father stopped taking us to school. He became moody and
reclusive and began to lose weight. He hadn't expressed this much sorrow even
when his father died suddenly a few years ago. We became fearful of him and
rarely ever approached him. Conversations with him became limited to
invitations at meal time and the necessary greetings in the morning and at
night. He was deeply pained. How could they let him go after twenty-two years
of service? He was always punctual, he sometimes refused to take his annual leave
and he forbade my mother from wearing European wax prints. He had given his
life to the company and yet, they decided to go in a different direction.
I knew things
were really starting to unravel when I got home one day from playing with some
friends and looked up to find that the wall clock that he had received after
his twentieth anniversary was no longer stood directly above the family altar.
Although we
didn't receive rides to school and sometimes had to walk or take public
transport, my father continued to dress up as always and leave the house daily.
Every evening, he would explain to my mother that he had been seeking vacancies
and talking to his old friends and would soon hear good news. After four
months, no good news came and my father became even more weary and distant. He
began coming home later than usual, tired and irritable, until one Wednesday
evening he didn't come back home, leaving my mother with five children to care
for all by herself.
We never lacked
anything. My mother especially, who strutted around the city in colorful fabric
earning the nickname Madam Peacock or several variations of it that made her
strut even harder. My father saw to it that all her needs were met. It must
have been because he loved her, but also it was because he had a point to
prove.
Marrying her was
no easy feat and after enduring a series of insults from her family because of
his family background, he made it his duty to stroke his ego by seeing to it
that all her needs were met, including her supply of skin lightening creams
that markedly changed her from the woman in the studio pictures with the huge
afros and bell-bottomed pants that filled albums in our parlor and pictures in
frames that circled the seating room.
She was well
rounded where it mattered, and wore her rolls of flesh as though they were a badge
of honor, a symbol to all, especially her family, that she was not doing badly.
In spite of her weight, my mother was beautiful, but I couldn’t help but wish she
would lay off the lightening creams. At this point though, she was at the stage
where stopping their usage would surely do more harm than good.
I remember a
genealogy project at school where I took in old pictures of my parents glued to
a piece of cardboard my father had brought home from work. I thought they
looked glamourous. My mom, with her huge pompadour reclined ever so lightly
against what seemed like a bar stool, while my dad stood tall next to her,
neither of them smiling yet radiantly beautiful.
I was about to
begin my talk when from behind me, a classmate, Uloma shouted as though she had
unearthed a diamond, "That is not your mother o! I thought your mother is
yellow." I ignored her, though my humiliation was palpable. She was
clearly a novice at reading body language because she turned to Amara who sat
next to her remarking loudly, "but her mother is yellow and fat!" Audible
whispers soon began to float around, while my teacher Mrs. Boateng, a short
Ghanaian with dried, crispy looking jheri curls that reminded me of Japanese
noodles looked on with a smirk, as though the racket in the class was coming
from another room.
My mother had once
threatened to slap her for hitting me with a ruler and this perhaps was her
best attempt at getting back at both of us. While I struggled to keep from
crying, the fuss continued until finally a voice I couldn't recognize put the
confusion to rest, "her mother is bleaching."
My siblings and
I exchanged knowing glances as we sat in the luxurious bus and geared up for
the long journey to Lagos. As we sat in our seats I occupied myself with one of
the novels I had taken from my mother's nightstand. We began by counting the
red cars on the express way, then the blue ones.
The huge lorry
that kept pace with our bus was completely covered in local proverbs and
scriptures from the Bible. As we finally sped past it, my eyes lingered on the
largest sign that ran along the full length of the lorry in large old English
text font, "no condition is permanent."
We had taken
this route many times to go and see my uncle during our long vacations, but
this time, the trip was markedly different. We were leaving Kaduna for good. My
mother, not one to be overly burdened had called my uncles to let them know
that their brother had left and she was sending their children down to live
with them. It was arranged for my older brother and I to stay with my uncle
while my other three siblings would go to Akure where my Dad's sister-in-law
had a primary school they could attend for free. My mother stayed on in Kaduna
to mind the house and wait for my Dad to return, needless to say, we didn't get
the invitation to her wedding.
Life in Lagos
was exciting. I liked my new school and the friends I was making. Now, I was a
Lagos girl too and I could hold my own against my cousins
who for years would taunt me and call me a "bush Hausa girl." Life at
home however was very interesting.
My uncle was a walking contradiction. He was
a deacon at his church, yet he was sloppy, recalcitrant, and took infidelity to
levels not previously attained. His wife was quiet to a fault, existing in his
shadow and always had one ailment or another. My cousins, both boys, were
boisterous and out of control. I always wondered how I had never noticed how
badly behaved they were summer after summer for all these years.
Thankfully, my
uncle's wife was glad to have me in the house. I accompanied her to the market,
cooked with her and became her soap opera watching buddy. She was very different
from my mother who now paid once yearly visits in the company of her driver,
arriving in a different car every year.
I resented her
deeply. At first, I was happy each time she came. The boot of the car would be
packed with clothes, shoes and books. She also never failed to bring bags of
sweets and all kinds of biscuits, treats that we only had during birthdays.
With time, I began to loathe her and her gifts. I found it easier to forgive my
father for leaving, but could not forgive her for deserting us. She had a
choice and she did not choose her children. She would often tell me that as I
got older I would understand why she had to leave. Despite my deep anger
towards her, I had to swallow my pride when I needed money to purchase a ticket
to attend university in Texas. I had won a scholarship and did not need her
money for much besides a plane ticket.
I could hear the
familiar sound of irritation mixed with anger and sometimes disgust. It was the
same tone he had in his voice when he would return from work without his key
and would spend minutes knocking on the metal gate while we either played in
the yard or were busy preparing dinner in the kitchen.
“Ivie, didn’t
you see my call?” he spat out.
“Yes uncle, I
did but I couldn’t leave because I was in the middle of an important meeting
with my boss, I am sorry Sir.” I said sheepishly.
“How is that
your job again?” His question didn’t demand a reply but was just a filler,
until he got to the main reason behind his call.
“Eh, there is
this head phone.” He said, as though he expected me to know what headphone he
was referring to.
At this point,
my nerves had subsided. He had asked two seemingly benign questions and he had
not delivered any bad news yet. This time instead I was the one who replied
with disgust, irritated that he had called me to discuss headphones.
“Yes, what
headphones?” I retorted.
“Is it me,
you’re talking to like that? Anyway, there are these headphones I want to take
to Benin when I go and visit next month. I heard some musician is producing
them. See if you can send them to me in blue. My friend’s wife is visiting
Dallas and can bring them back for me. That is why I called.” He finished off
the last sentence with a tone of authority the words ringing in my ears long
after he uttered them.
If I could slap
him, I honestly would have done so. I was so furious that for a few seconds I
held the phone to my ears, speechless, the venom rising inside me.
“What the hell
did this old man just ask for? Headphones by some musician. Do I even own those
damn headphones?”
When I finally
gathered myself to respond, I was so disgusted but yet again I failed to stand
up to my uncle and rather than tell him that the bulk of my discretionary
spending that month was earmarked for a friend’s bridal shower, I agreed to buy
the headphones and give them to his friend.
After I hung up
the phone, I stood in the restroom for what seemed like minutes rehearsing the
conversation with him and telling him exactly what was on my mind. He had a
gravely sick wife and he was concerned about headphones to take to Benin. Again
I was overwhelmed with the desire to want to slap him once again and I felt so
small as I reached for a paper towel to pull open the restroom door.
My uncle had won
again as he had several times before. I hurriedly walked back to my cubicle,
convinced I left a trail of smoke from all the anger behind me as I walked. I
sat down in my chair, tapped on my keyboard lightly and entered in my password
and mechanically began the search for those headphones he needed to use in
Benin.
If only my uncle
were computer savvy, I bet he would be lining inboxes of unsuspecting
foreigners and requesting for bank account numbers.
On numerous
occasions, my cousins who had become known as the neighborhood touts would go
and rescue my uncle from getting a beating from some woman’s husband.
Ironically, he only got saved from one beating to be brought home to receive
another.
There was this
particular lady I remembered who made blouses for my aunt. My uncle was rather
fond of her, so much so she began to make his clothes even though it was known
that she only made outfits for women. She was a superbly skilled seamstress,
but she had other brilliant skills besides sewing. On numerous occasions when I
would ride in my uncle’s car he would find reason to pass by her house slowing
down deliberately as he drove by giving her enough time to walk up and chat
with him.
Yes, that was
her son. I had just seen his picture the other day, and Facebook suggested him
as a person I knew. Once when I perused his page, I was shocked at the number
of obscene memes he posted on his wall, most of them referring to the prowess
of whatever it was that hung between his legs. It didn’t take long for my shock
to dissolve into laughter. This kid had to be joking. He was skinny beyond
belief and his face was severely riddled by acne. I respected him though
because he had an unrivaled amount of self-confidence. However, I was in awe of
the girls who commented on his pictures, vying for his attention, they truly were the stars of the show.
So when I saw his
name suggested again, I chuckled a bit and moved the cursor to the
right to see other profiles. I don’t know what it was that made me stop, but I
realized his profile picture was different. He still had acne but there was
something different about him. He had headphones hanging around his neck. They
were headphones made by an American musician and they were blue. I quickly proceeded
to search his profile and read where he thanked a certain unnamed uncle for
giving them to him just in time to wear for a talent show at the private school
he attended.
I am not sure
how it all happened but within seconds, the only sound audible was the ringing
of the phone in my ear, drowning out the sound of oil in the frying pan where
the plantains I was preparing for dinner danced around.
In a few minutes
I heard his voice. He sounded super excited to hear from me.
“How is that
your boyfriend?” He asked jokingly.
“And your work?”
“Fine Sir,” I responded and mumbled some
mundane stuff about how stressful work had gotten the last few days.
“Okay, we just
finished our hundred day fast and we are praying for you. The God of Abraham
will enlarge your coast and give you rest in due time. He will promote you and
make you a manager in that your job. The people that are directing you will
soon be under you. I prophecy that your promotion will not pass you by.”
He went on for
what seemed like a few minutes, becoming mildly incoherent as he began to
speak in tongues.
When he finally
stopped to catch his breath and conclude the prayer, I thanked him and said
something about having to go.
“It is well.” He
uttered with much assurance.
“Thank you sir.”
I responded.
I hung up the
phone just as the smoke alarm when off, my once golden brown plantains now
charred slices bobbing around in the oil.
